


love and fate (and a touch of stupidity)

by erebones



Series: tides and fathoms [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Bonding, Episode Related, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 17:34:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16958466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: Fjord and Caleb discuss the day's events and reconfirm their bond.





	love and fate (and a touch of stupidity)

**Author's Note:**

> "Like Romeo and Juliet  
> T'was written in the stars before they even met  
> That love and fate and a touch of stupidity  
> Would rob them of their hope of living happily  
> The endings are often a little bit gory  
> I wonder why they didn't just change their story?  
> We're told we have to do what we're told but surely  
> Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty."  
>  _—Naughty_ , Matilda the Musical
> 
> Inspired by the song above that Liam tweeted shortly after Episode 44 aired. Beta'ed by the ever-stupendous losebetter!
> 
>  **EDIT:** Now with NSFW art!! Credits at the bottom <3

Caleb doesn’t hear the first knock. Or the second. The third, a little more sure of itself, drags his head out of the depths of his spellbook and he half-turns in his chair, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“ _Ja_ , come in.”

The door to the captain’s cabin creaks open. Fjord stands in the gap, illuminated in flickering tongues of light by the candles that have been burning so long they’ve overflowed their wax onto the desk’s authoritarian surface. He looks as exhausted as Caleb feels, but he still wears a quiet, earnest smile tucked into the corner of his mouth as he taps his claws softly on the doorframe.

“Hey. Still at it?”

“Still at it.” He looks down at the pages, scrawled over with the chicken scratch that pours out of him whenever he’s researching new spells. “I’m sorry, it’s late, I should let you have your room back.”

“Oh, no, please! I’m not here to kick you out.” Tentative, Fjord steps fully into the room and lets the door shut behind him. He’s out of his armor, and his dark, wine-red shirt is nearly black in the low light, open enough at the throat that Caleb can see the place where he pushed the second orb into his chest. The skin is unblemished to his eyes. A bit damp with sweat and saltwater, but such is a life at sea.

“You would be well within your rights.” Caleb marks a few more thoughts down and sets the pen on the desk. “These are your quarters, after all. _Captain_.”

Fjord’s mouth twists in tacit disagreement. “I ain’t arguin’ that necessarily, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” He takes a breath and comes to stand at the desk’s edge, boots treading heavy on the floor. “What are you workin’ on?”

“Just some… thoughts. About earlier.” Caleb looks down at the pages of his workbook, the untidy rows of his own personal shorthand scattered from edge to edge like the ravings of a madman.

“Dashilla?” Fjord asks. “Or…”

“The bowl,” Caleb finishes for him. “ _Ja_.”

“Speakin’ of, um, earlier.” Fjord’s arms are folded across his chest, but he drops the protective pose to rub idly at the palm of one hand with his thumb. “You feelin’ all right?”

“Of course I am.” Caleb blinks up at him and wonders how transparent the lie is on his face.

Fjord hums, politely disbelieving. “You took a lot of damage, Caleb. Hell, you went down the minute she looked at you.”

Caleb grimaces and looks away. “ _Ja_ , that was… unsettling, to say the least. But I am fine. Or I will be after a good night’s sleep. I just had some thoughts I wanted to put to paper, first.” He slides his spellbook shut reluctantly and sits back in the chair—the _Captain’s_ chair. Not so long ago it had been Avantika sitting here, receiving them into her study. Now it was theirs. Now it was _Fjord’s_ , though he seemed reluctant still to hold that honor. “What of yourself?”

“Me?” Fjord echoes, seeming surprised by the question. “Oh, I’m great. Just dandy.” He’s still playing with the palm of his hand. His right hand, the one he’d sliced open without hesitation, before Caleb even asked. A little strange thrill uncurls in Caleb’s chest and he jerks his chin toward Fjord.

“Your hand all right?”

Fjord drops his hands at once. “Fine. Jester’s healin’ mostly got me up to snuff.”

“Mostly?” With an imperious look, Caleb reaches out to Fjord, palm up. With some reluctance, Fjord rests his injured hand in Caleb’s for inspection. “You’ve been messing with it,” he tuts when he sees the sharp red lines criss-crossing each other, still oozing a little bit of blood into the creases of his palm.

“Can’t help it,” Fjord mutters. If his skin weren’t quite so dark, Caleb thinks he might be blushing—his ears are folded back against his skull and his eyes downcast as if ashamed.

“You should see if Jester or Mr. Clay have any juice left,” he says, but he doesn’t let go of Fjord’s hand.

“That’s—I don’t think that’s necessary.” Fjord clears his throat. “I just. It meant something, you know? Feels… odd to just. Erase it. Disrespectful, somehow.”

 _It meant something_. Caleb curls his own right hand into a fist against the desk even as his left cradles Fjord’s larger paw in the palm of his hand. “I know what you mean.” He takes a steadying breath. “It’s, uhm. Strange to think that we will always carry a little bit of each other, now.”

“Yeah.” Fjord’s face is warm but serious, and he meets Caleb’s eyes without flinching. “It’s fitting, I think.”

“How so?”

“Well. We’ve been allied since the beginning, yeah? Making it work.” He turns his hand so it’s palm to palm with Caleb’s. Caleb can feel the light dampness of blood against his own unblemished skin and swallows, throat suddenly gone dry. “I’m just sayin’ I’m pleased about where this is going. You and I. It feels… solid. It feels _right_.”

Something vast and unnameable swells in Caleb’s chest fit to crack the settings of his ribs. “I agree,” he says softly, because it feels like something _should_ be said—like Fjord is waiting for an answer.

Fjord smiles and holds out his hand. With only a slight wince of pain, Caleb reaches up and clasps Fjord’s hand, cut palm to cut palm. “You’re still bleeding,” Fjord says, almost conversationally. He doesn’t let go.

“Just a little.” Caleb wets his lower lip with his tongue. “It was… a deep cut.”

“Yeah.” Fjord leans his hip against the desk until he’s practically sitting on it, arse propped against the oaken lip, and spreads Caleb’s injured hand to inspect it. “Writing with it probably ain’t doin’ it any favors.”

“Probably not.”

Fjord touches the tip of his finger very lightly to the seam of the cut slashed across Caleb’s palm. Caleb feels the slightest reflex to curl his fingers inward, protect himself, but he shakes it off.

“Here,” Fjord says suddenly, but quiet, letting go of his hand. He tugs at the hem of his shirt, freeing it from his belt, and with a quick slice of his clawed thumb, cuts a neat strip of cloth off the bottom. Caleb startles back a little, mouth agape, and watches him kneel down to fish in a bottom drawer of the desk.

“Fjord, what are you doing? Your shirt—”

“It’s all right. No one sees the bottom bits anyway, right?” He flashes a sharp-edged grin up at Caleb, giving him a clear view of the new tusks poking free of his smile. “Just trust me.”

“I do trust you,” Caleb says automatically as Fjord fishes a bottle of something from the drawer and pulls the cork out with his teeth. He dribbles a little bit onto the strip of fabric and the sharp, pungent aroma of alcohol blooms in Caleb’s nose.

“Good. The feelin’s mutual.”

Caleb nudges the bottle with his boot when Fjord plunks it onto the ground. “What’s this?”

“Some of Avantika’s finest.” Fjord’s face screws up briefly like he’s about to spit, but he thinks better of it. “Give me your hand.”

Caleb does so, without hesitation. Fjord’s grip is firm but gentle, steady against the bones of his wrist that no longer protrude quite so sharply as they once did. The alcohol stings a bit but Caleb grits his teeth and makes no sound as Fjord dabs away the excess dried blood and cleans the wound itself in careful swipes.

“All right?” he asks, peering up at Caleb through his lashes.

“ _Ja_ … I am fine.” And this time, Caleb thinks, he really means it. His eyes travel over Fjord, kneeling at his feet: his dark hair stiff with salt and streaked with grey, the patient furrow of his brow, the tender way he cradles Caleb’s hand in his. The pain fades against the backdrop of Fjord’s care, and Caleb is hardly even surprised when Fjord glances up at him, just once, before leaning down and placing a kiss to the center of his palm.

His lips are soft and a little bit chapped; his breath puffs warmly against Caleb’s wrist before he withdraws and looks up, checking for Caleb’s reaction. Caleb… he’s not entirely sure _what_ his reaction is. His face feels frozen, cheeks and brow and throat and teeth all fused into a shapeless mound of rust like the crates they’d found in the _Tidesbreath_. But whatever Fjord sees must encourage him, because he quirks a tiny, playful smile and kisses him again, thumb to his pulse point and chin grazing the loose-curled tips of Caleb’s fingers.

“There,” he whispers, finally pulling back. He begins to wrap Caleb’s hand in the damp cloth, each brush of his fingers like soft, curious moths against his skin. “Good as new.”

“That’s a neat trick,” Caleb says with a throat as dry as dust.

Fjord shrugs one self-conscious shoulder and ties a sturdy knot. “I have it on good authority that kissing makes everything feel better.”

“Is that so?” Smiling in spite of himself, Caleb frees his hand to rub the little cleft in Fjord’s chin with his thumb. “Then surely it’s only fair that I return the favor.”

Without waiting for Fjord’s unsteady breath to find its equilibrium, Caleb brings his injured hand to his mouth and kisses it. The knuckles first, weather-beaten and calloused, then the softness of his thumb, the place where his lifeline carves a path to the pulse beating rapidfire in his wrist. Then the wound itself, a little bit warm against his lips. Caleb swipes his tongue out, and copper and salt mingle on his tongue. Fjord gasps.

“Too much—?” Caleb begins to ask; but he is overruled by Fjord’s mouth on his as Fjord rises up on his knees and kisses him roughly. Too rough, for a moment, hard-edged with nerves and the unexpected surreality of it. But Caleb cups his cheek and gentles Fjord’s mouth with his own, and then it’s just the soft, wet pressure of lips and tongues and the quiet creep of heat below his skin.

Fjord groans and it seems to reverberate in the quiet room, as does the wet smack of the kiss breaking neatly down the middle. Caleb stares down at him, chest heaving. He’s turned a little in his chair in the interim and sits sidesaddle, Fjord kneeling at his feet, his large hands spread against Caleb’s knees.

“I,” Fjord says, and licks his lips. His pupils are wide and warm black, the weight of his hands pinning Caleb to the chair; but he doesn’t think he’d move even if he wanted to. “Again?”

Caleb nods, too overcome to speak, and Fjord rises up again, his thick waist pressing sturdily between his legs, one large palm coming to rest against his cheek. He holds him there as he licks into his mouth, as his other hand massages the outer stretch of Caleb’s thigh. Gradually, the taste of blood weans away from Caleb’s mouth and is replaced with nothing but warmth and wet. Caleb groans and squirms closer. Fjord’s hair is thick and inviting to his fingers, the apple of his cheek soft and delicate as new paper. He feels eager between Caleb’s legs, but restrained somehow—tense like a coiled wire ready to be sprung.

Caleb manages to pull away from his mouth with some effort, though his fingers still scrub through the close-cropped hair over Fjord’s ears. Fjord blinks his eyes open slowly, heavy-lidded. The sheen at his lower lip is dark in the candlelight, like ink. Like blood.

“We should talk about this,” Fjord whispers, even as his hands climb Caleb’s thighs.

“Should we?” Caleb asks and arches toward him. Fjord has clever hands, and the fastenings of Caleb’s trousers yield readily to his touch. He digs his injured hand into a fistful of tousled salt-pepper hair and welcomes the slight ache.

Fjord looks up at him through sooty lashes. A slight dimple deepens into shadow in his cheek. “Later?”

They’ve been putting off a hundred conversations for months. One more night is nothing, not when Fjord is there, on his knees, and Caleb is exhausted and aching and trembling on the cusp of a black well he’s still gathering the courage to fall into.

Of course all of that has come to this. It was always going to come to this.

“ _Ja_ ,” he breathes, thumb to the vein pulsing in Fjord’s temple. “Later.”

Fjord bows his head and Caleb has to bite his thumb savagely to keep from crying out into the empty room. It’s been so long, and Fjord is so eager, his fingers digging into the rumpled trousers around his hips so deeply that he can feel the dulled prick of claws against his skin. It makes him writhe a little against the seat and Fjord hums, head bobbing low. The heat and wet of his throat closes around him and Caleb tugs against the grain of his hair so hard that he pulls off with a ragged gasp.

“Did I do something wrong?” he rasps, already leaning his weight back into his heels like he’s prepared to flee.

“ _Nein, nein_ Fjord, please—” Caleb smooths the worry from his temples with his thumbs, bending to rest their foreheads together. “Please…”

Fjord kisses him. The salt is there again, but it’s from Caleb this time. Caleb on his lips and between his teeth, Caleb in his _blood_. He shudders and nips at Fjord’s bottom lip, aching for more. Seeking evidence of what they’ve done, the promise they made. He feels the cold bite of steel against his throat in his memory—but it’s warmer now, warm like the drag of Fjord’s claws against his stomach, under his clothes.

 _We’re either a team, or you’re working for yourselves. Decide_. The Fjord in his head is wild-eyed, frantic, and then the skewed memory is overlaid with the flinch of horror and fear as Fjord whipped his sword back at the last second, slowed by the weight of water all around them down in the lair where Caleb felt his heart stop.

_Can I count on you to return the favor?_

_Always._

“Fjord,” he chokes, hips twisting as one large hand closes around him. He can feel the pulse of his own blood in his veins and it feels like the beat of blood draining from his body into Fjord’s.

“I’m here,” Fjord murmurs against his throat. “I have you, Caleb. I have you.”

There is something to this. Something to having Fjord on his knees, fitting so perfectly, so eagerly between his legs. Maybe it’s the desire talking, the tight seal of Fjord’s lips sliding down his cock. Or maybe it’s the illusion of control. Caleb twines his fingers deeper in Fjord’s hair and pants for breath and knows, deep in his heart of hearts, that he is not in control of this. He has never been _in control_ , has never been the puppetmaster working behind the scenes. Fjord is with him as he has always been, eye to eye, like two hands clasped and bleeding in the dark.

“Fjord,” he growls, tugging him back by his hair until his dick slips from Fjord’s bruised and spit-shined mouth. For such a large man, he moves readily at Caleb’s delicate beck and call; he rests easily on his heels without an ounce of complaint, although the floorboards must be murder on his knees. His enormous hands hold Caleb’s hips loosely, and his eyes are dark and steady. Waiting. “I want you with me,” Caleb whispers, “not below me.”

Fjord hums and rubs the pad of a thumb against Caleb’s hipbone. “You know, I kinda like bein’ down at your feet,” he says, and his voice is a raspy parody of itself, smudged with smoke and roughness from taking Caleb’s cock.

“Do you?” Caleb breathes.

“Yeah.” Slowly, bowing his head with one eye fixed to Caleb as if waiting to be repulsed, Fjord bends and kisses the head of his cock. “I do.”

“Do you,” Caleb chokes, “want to move… somewhere more comfortable?”

He means the bed, of course, pushed up against the far wall and looking completely untouched. Apart from the faint singe of smoke hanging in the air, still clinging to damp wood, the cabin is much as Avantika had left it. They’ve been traveling for a few days, but Caleb doesn’t think Fjord has spent a single night in that bed.

Realization dawns, a hard knot of guilt in the pit of his stomach. But Fjord just shakes his head, smiling, his thumb carving a patient liturgy against Caleb’s hip. “Let’s keep it simple, yeah?” His claws prick into the lean flesh of Caleb’s belly, and he shivers. “Tell me if you want me to let up.”

Caleb only nods, driven to speechlessness, and Fjord bows his head.

He might be the one on his knees, but Caleb has ceded all pretense at control. Fjord’s hands on his waist are firm, nearly bruising, grounding him in the chair with perfect weight and holding him steady against the impulse to fuck his throat. The faint sting of claws against his skin keeps him from retreating too far into his own head, and soon he’s bent forward over Fjord’s back, clutching his loose shirt as the edge rushes nearer.

“Fjord,” he gasps, trying to stem the tide, “I’m close, _liebling,_ I—”

Fjord hums in response and presses lower. His lips stretch into an obscene shape around the base of Caleb’s dick, swallowing around him, and Caleb hears nothing but the creak of the ship and the rush of blood in his ears as he comes down Fjord’s throat.

He sags back in the chair almost immediately, gasping for breath. Fjord lets his cock slip free and nuzzles kisses to his lower belly, the thatch of darker red hair that marches down from his navel. He holds him there, still, keeps him steady and upright even though everything in Caleb longs to slump forward and let Fjord take his weight entirely.

But that would be unspeakably rude. Caleb does not intend this to be one-sided. Nothing they’ve ever done has been one-sided, and he’s not about to start now. Gathering his breath and his thoughts, splintered into every direction with the earth-shattering orgasm Fjord just gave him, Caleb coaxes Fjord’s face up with a hand to his jaw and kisses the taste of salt from his lips.

“Get on the desk,” he whispers raggedly. “Or the bed—I don’t care.”

Fjord hesitates, momentarily paralyzed with indecision, before staggering to his feet and moving to the bed, limbs moving crookedly like he’s struggling under the weight of the entire ocean. When he slumps to the mattress, sat on the edge with his feet planted heavily on the floor, it’s with something like relief. Caleb tucks himself away hastily and follows. “Here,” Fjord says, shoving a pillow at him. Caleb takes it and goes to his knees.

There is no better feeling, Caleb decides, than the gentle scrape of Fjord’s fingers through his hair. Though his movements are slow and sloppy with orgasm, Fjord murmurs encouragement and groans deeply with satisfaction, kindling a glow of pride in Caleb’s chest as he works the head of Fjord’s cock with his tongue. Saliva and his uninjured hand make up the rest, and soon his bandaged palm finds its way to Fjord’s chest, wound pressed to the bare stretch of skin over his breastbone. Fjord’s pulse slams against his touch like his heart is trying to escape his ribcage and climb into Caleb’s hand, and he groans, low and rumbling like a thunderstorm.

“Cay,” Fjord bites out brokenly. “Fuck, your mouth…”

Caleb digs his nails into Fjord’s chest and sucks with tenfold determination, and whether it’s inexperience, exhaustion, or just plain surprise, he receives no warning before Fjord spills into his mouth, hot seed pooling beneath his tongue and smearing against his lips when he pulls away. Though his instinct is to swallow, he turns his head and spits a thick, viscous gob of it onto the floor instead, a last _fuck you_ to the cabin’s previous occupant.

He sighs a long sigh of satisfaction when it’s over, resting his head on Fjord’s thigh. The gentle drag of fingers through his hair has not abated.

“Caleb,” Fjord murmurs. “All right, darlin’?”

Caleb nods, beyond speech. Then he looks up.

His hand has dropped to lay against Fjord’s hip, but he must have bled through his bandages, because there’s a smear of gory red against Fjord’s sternum. He reaches up and drags a finger through it, forming a ragged line down the center of his chest to the heave and quiver of his diaphragm.

“Sorry,” he says vaguely, licking salt from the corner of his mouth. “Made a bit of a mess.”

Fjord shakes his head and tucks a lock of hair behind Caleb’s ear. “It’s all right. Life’s messy. Wouldn’t be much fun otherwise, eh?” Without waiting for a response he hooks his hands under Caleb’s arms and hauls him bodily up onto the mattress. The coverlet is fine watered silk, entirely impractical but opulent all the same, no doubt preserved through some enchantment, and it feels beautifully soft against his cheek as he sprawls out against it.

“Stay with me?” Caleb whispers when Fjord doesn’t immediately move to join him.

“I will,” Fjord assures him, even as he busies himself with sorting out his trousers. He leans down and kisses the sweaty arch of Caleb’s brow before standing and making his way to the doors of the balcony at the rear of the room.

Caleb tries to rest, he really does. The rock of the ship and the softness of the bedding should have been enough to drag him down into the slumber he so desperately needs. But he can see Fjord silhouetted against the night sky and taste the wild purity of the ocean air like an invitation, and so after a minute or two of quiet he rouses himself and moves to stand at his side.

“It’s a beautiful view,” he says conversationally, when no more important words are forthcoming.

“It is.” Fjord sounds weary, but not upset. He sounds… calm. Like he’s finally found his footing on uneven ground. As if to confirm this thought, he half-turns and invites Caleb out onto the narrow ledge with an arm around his waist. “We’ll make it to Basaft in a few days, I think.”

“If you say so,” Caleb says agreeably. He may be able to mark north on any unknown map, but things like sea miles and knots and points of sail are still half a foreign language to him. “And after that… the Gravid Archipelago?”

Fjord nods slowly. “I know you want to get back. To the Empire, and—all that. I just…”

“You want to find him,” Caleb says when silence falls again. “Vandren.”

“Yeah. If… if there’s even the slightest chance…” Fjord shakes his head, eyes shut against a hundred unkind possibilities. “One more lead, then I promise we’ll go back.”

“We have time. I cannot begrudge you the hunt, Fjord.” Moving a little bit stiffly, still unaccustomed to such casual intimacy, Caleb spreads his bandaged hand flat against Fjord’s broad back. “I know what it is to lose a parent. I would be the worst sort of hypocrite if I insisted we give up the chase so quickly.”

Fjord hums, curiosity and thanks blended together, but he doesn’t press for details. The poignant ache of relief in Caleb’s chest is so sharp that he nearly weeps. _You’re tired, that’s all_ , he tells himself, and it steadies him enough that he can speak without too much distortion.

“You don’t like it, do you.”

“Like what?”

“The room.” He twists his jaw back to gesture at the cabin behind them. “The bed.”

Fjord’s fingers grip his waist a little tighter. “Let’s just say I… ain’t got the fondest memories of it.”

Caleb nods in silence, and thinks of fire. Licking up dry, old wood, wreathing his hands, smoke billowing high into a grey sky. The angry shriek of weathered joists as they crumbled into live coals. “Perhaps you’d like to replace them with new memories,” he says, instead of the untoward promise of _I will burn our initials into the bark of anyone who ever hurt you_.

Fjord huffs a dry little laugh and presses his nose to the top of Caleb’s head, naturally settling his protective instincts. “Yeah. I think… that’d be good.”

They leave the door ajar, held in place with a sturdy wooden block for the purpose. The candles Caleb leaves burning. In tandem, movements slowed with weariness, they undress and climb beneath the covers side by side. The sheets smell of sharp spices and scented oil, and for a little while Fjord lays stiff as a salt-toughened board beside him; but Caleb tucks himself against his side, blood-spotted hand against his cheek, and eventually Fjord softens and drifts into sleep, lulled by the tinge of copper in his nose.

Caleb lets his eyes fall shut at last. Whatever comes will come, and they will defeat it together, as they have always done. Side by side. Cheek to cheek. Cut palm to cut palm.

**Author's Note:**

> The gorgeous drawing is courtesy of [@nsfwalexdoodle](https://twitter.com/nsfwalexdoodle)!! Give them a follow if you're 18+, or check our their awesome regular art blog [@alexdoodle](https://twitter.com/alexdoodle). <3


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